Modern breweries need to have a high level of raw material flexibility with respect to adjunct inclusion and malt quality.
When adjuncts like corn grits, barley or rice are used in the brewing process instead of malt, or when under-modified low quality malt is used, this will result in a level of free amino nitrogen that is insufficient to have proper yeast fermentation.
Wort nitrogen is normally determined as FAN (free amino nitrogen). FAN includes all free primary amines and thus also includes amines of nucleotides and other compounds which are not amino acids.
The inventors have found a surprisingly good method of increasing the level of FAN in a wort.